Free Web NovelChapter 309: 309/The Burden of Memory
Chapter 309:
Robert’s POV
I remained sitting in my place on the sofa like a statue, motionless. My movement and ability to express myself were completely paralyzed, and my mind, weighed down by doubts, could not comprehend the cursed and toxic words that my father threw into my ears with absolute gloating. My body stiffened entirely, and my gaze fixated in complete astonishment and a shock that shook my entity toward the features of my old father, and I said in a faint, broken, and shocked tone: "What the hell are you saying?! Repeat what you just said right now!"
My father tilted his head with a harshness and an unbreakable pride, fixed his thin palms on the armrests of his wheelchair, and said with emphasis, assertion, and a tone dripping with poison: "I say and repeat so that your mind can comprehend... she told Wilson with her own tongue and in front of his men that she is Carlos’s lover and his secret lover to seek protection through him!"
I felt a burning, hellish heat coursing through my veins insanely, and blood pumped profusely into my head in a terrifying manner that almost exploded my arteries. The lines of my face tightened with malice, hatred, and sweeping rage, and my jaw convulsed violently. I advanced with my upper torso and half of my body toward him in a convulsion, gripped my knees with excessive force, and said in a roaring and scary voice: "Are you sure of this cursed talk?! Or is it just another filthy game of your games?!"
My father darted a look at me filled with gloating, mockery, and disparagement of my worth, and waved his thin hand in the air, saying with a biting sarcasm that stabbed my pride and chivalry to the core: "That cheap girl for whom you waste your life, your men, and your money just to search for her... in your absence, she was fucking your close friend Carlos and taking him as a refuge!"
As soon as his mouth uttered those filthy words and that heinous accusation, the hot blood froze in my veins like ice, and a sweeping wave of blind madness and drama invaded me, causing me to lose control over my nerves and balance entirely. I violently stood up from my place like a raging volcano about to burn everything in its path, and my eyes ignited with fatal sparks, and I shouted at the top of my lungs making the house shake, while pointing at him with my index finger with a sweeping trembling and rage: "Father... close your cursed and filthy mouth immediately and do not utter another letter!"
My father raised his eyebrows with continuous provocation, and his features did not care about my fury and my madness pouring in the room, so he said with a deadly coldness that poured oil on my fires: "What is wrong with you? Do you think I am lying? Certainly she was fucking him behind your back and enjoying the matter."
I could no longer see anything before me from the excess of anger and madness; I cut through the vacuum separating us with crazy, roaring, and fast steps, advanced toward him with a blind and brutal rush, and gripped with both of my hands with intense malice and excessive force onto the frame of the wheelchair from below, and lifted it with strength and determination upward without mercy for his disability, then flipped it with its entire weight onto the floor violently!
My father’s dormant and helpless body tumbled and separated by force from the chair, and collided against the hard wooden floor of the room with violence and harshness, letting out a loud, choked, and pained scream that drenched and filled the corners of the place with pain. I stood tall, stiffened over his cast-down body, my entire body twisting and swaying from the excess of anger and successive, suppressed breaths, and I looked at him with my eyes congested with blood and said from between my teeth in a loud voice that shook the entire corners of the room: "I told you clearly to close your cursed mouth and not to speak!"
My father settled on the floor in severe pain and shock at my audacity, and his thin limbs trembled in complete helplessness as he turned his head with difficulty toward me with a real terror that appeared in his eyes, and said in a choked voice and a faltering tone: "Robert... what is this hellish madness you have done?! How dare you flip your helpless father and assault him in this manner?!"
With helplessness and extreme difficulty, he began dragging his paralyzed lower body, crawling on the floor using his elbows with hardship while panting with broken breaths and distress, saying with a bitterness that filled his voice: "You cursed and disobedient son... do humans and respectable men do such harsh actions with their helpless parents?!"
I look at his body crawling on the floor with a glance filled with harshness, detachment, and severe disgust at his appearance and his history, and ground out with a deadly and harsh coldness that cut the cords of my emotion: "To me, and because of your despicable actions... you are not my father, and you never were one day."
My father completed his crawling with hardship, fatigue, and pain on the carpet for several centimeters until he arrived with the soul’s exhaustion and misery to the edge of the nearby sofa, and tried to raise his upper torso with both of his hands with extreme difficulty to lean upon it to rise, but his physical powers collapsed completely and he could not bear his weight, so he fell again on his face in helplessness. He raised his head and fixated his weak, congested, and crying glances toward me, and shouted in lack of resourcefulness and oppression: "You are officially insane! Come forward and help me to rise and return to the chair!"
I stood in my place with absolute steadfastness like a rock, and crossed my arms firmly over my chest without moving a single inch or showing an atom of desire to rescue him, and said with decisiveness and detachment: "I will not do it... you will remain cast down there to taste your own harshness."
In that moment charged with oppression and drama, the door opened with violence, strength, and a great rush, and Harold entered the room quickly with a startled, pale face and eyes widened in panic and shock due to hearing the screaming outside. He looked at the floor in astonishment and was shocked by the sight of my father thrown like a rag, so he bent toward him with supernatural speed while shouting in real fear and eagerness: "Father! What is wrong with you?! What happened for you to be on the floor?!"
My father gripped with his trembling and weak fingers onto Harold’s arm with eagerness and complete helplessness, seeking refuge in him, and said: "Come, my dear son... come, carry me between your arms and seat me on the sofa quickly."
Harold directed his entire body and energy toward him, and surrounded his back with his strong arms to help him rise, but he turned his head right and left in astonishment and confusion, asking in denunciation and anger: "What happened here, for heaven’s sake? Why is your wheelchair flipped on the floor in this manner?!"
My father raised his finger with a sweeping trembling and pointed at me with deep-seated hatred: "Your brutal brother Robert is the one who flipped the chair with me and intentionally harmed me and threw me to the ground without mercy!"
Harold stiffened in his place for seconds in silence, then turned his head and fixated his fierce, sad, and sharp glances toward me in reproach, and the features of his face tightened with emotion and rage and he said in a loud voice ripe for a fight: "What is this barbaric and crazy behavior, Robert?! How can you do this to your father while he is disabled and cannot move?!"
My deadly coldness did not budge nor did my eyelid blink because of his reprimand; rather, I narrowed my sharp eyes and looked at him with a dry, stern threat and said in a decisive tone: "Do not interfere in what happens between us, Harold. Keep to your silence and neutrality."
Harold bent again with all his strength and muscles, and lifted my father’s body with extreme caution and gentleness between his arms and placed him softly on the sofa to rest, then turned to me while wiping his trembling palms with tension and sighed with sweeping distress, saying: "I came and the chaos shocked me. I just arrived now and heard the hysterical screaming outside, so I came rushing toward the room to see the disaster."
My father breathed a sigh of relief after he settled in his place, rested his tired back against the soft pillows, and looked at Harold with a warm maternal affection and love, and said with gratitude: "It is a good thing and a mercy that you are always present here to protect me, my dear righteous son."
Harold took one step toward me to confront me, and knitted his eyebrows with features filled with regret, sadness, and fatigue from our disintegrated family, and asked me in a reproaching and pleading tone: "Robert... please answer me, have you never tired or grown weary of this hostility and continuous fires between us throughout these years?"
I advanced toward him with a matching, challenging step, and my jaw convulsed violently while I asked him with a biting and bitter sarcasm that cuts hearts: "And you? Answer me you, for heaven’s sake! Will you continue to behave foolishly as if nothing happened in our black past? Have you simply forgotten and overlooked who was the real and direct cause of the torment and death of our dear mother?!"
Harold’s gaze dropped with deep sadness, despair, and brokenness toward the floor, and his palms relaxed to his side, saying in a faint voice and a faltering tone: "I have not forgotten that black day, Robert, and I will never forget it... but at the same time, I cannot live and continue in this life without the existence of a father and a support who carries our name as well, no matter what his mistakes were."
I let out a sarcastic, loud laugh full of bitterness and hatred, and pointed with my palm in contempt and severe disgust toward my father sitting on the sofa and said with harshness: "Is this selfish and harsh creature what you call in your mind a father to lean upon and defend?!"
Harold raised his head quickly and looked directly into the depth of my eyes with a balanced solidity and a courage that reflected his steadfastness: "Yes, Robert, he is our father whether we like it or whether we refuse and stubbornly resist... and no one in this world can choose his parents or change their genes by his desire."
I waved a hand in the air with disparagement, coldness, and complete detachment, and turned my body to leave, saying with gloating and a biting sarcasm to demolish the warmth of their relationship: "Congratulations to you on your dear, righteous father. Enjoy his cursed blessing."
I headed with fast and strong steps toward the wooden door to leave and close behind me this Chapter of family disgust, but Harold’s loud voice stopped me in a sad, broken, and internally shattered tone that made my feet stand still and freeze violently at the threshold of the door. He said in a voice trembling with pain and locked-up tears: "Robert, I understand that you hate him and despise him because he was a cause for the torment and death of my mother... but me, for heaven’s sake, why?! Why do you hate me specifically to this extent and cannot bear seeing me or hearing my name? What is my guilt in what occurred?!"
I turned my entire body and my massive frame toward him with extreme slowness, and clouded my sharp, piercing, and scary glances like a hawk into his shocked face. I faced him with features of a face rigid, frozen, and harsh like granite, and said in a cutting tone that came out like a hiss from the depths of my burning chest: "Because simply, you are his dear, favorite son... because you are his pampered son who foolishly chose not to know or see the sins and filth of his father, and because simply you are the righteous son who lives honored in the light and comfort... and are not forced to live and breathe in the depths of darkness like me!"
Harold’s eyes widened in sweeping confusion, astonishment, and lack of understanding of my meanings, and he took one step forward to approach and ask me in dread and fear: "I do not understand your talk... what do you mean by light and darkness in our life?"
I bent with my upper torso toward him a little so that our gazes locked, and my eyes ignited with a hidden madness and obsession, and I ground out in a low voice that nevertheless shook his entity with violence: "You, Harold, chose by your own pure will and psychological comfort to forget and overlook... as for me, I was chosen by force and pain to remember and carry the scars of everything always without escape!"
At that fatal moment for secrets, my father struck the armrest of the sofa with his palm violently and shouted in an angry explosion, cutting off our talk and our confrontation in fear: "Enough of this nonsense and drama, Robert! Silence!" freēwebnovel.com
I turned my head slowly toward the direction of my father and remained staring at him with cold features and a sarcastic, cunning, and provocative smile, and said with a roaring challenge and a confident voice: "No, it is not enough yet and it will never be enough... tell your dear and righteous son right now, for what did you choose me and employ me, my dear father? Tell him the filthy truth if you possess the courage! Tell him!"
Harold looked between us in terror, distraction, and total loss from the riddles surrounding him, and placed both of his hands over his head in distraction and emotion and shouted in a faltering voice: "I truly do not understand anything of what is happening and being said here between you two! What are these cursed secrets?!"
I averted my gaze from him in boredom, clamped my lips in complete rigidity and coldness, and said briefly and with detachment: "And this ignorance specifically is better and more merciful for your mind, Harold."
I left them in the middle of their confusion, their shock, and their family loss, and turned quickly, going out of the room with violent and successive steps. I descended the steps of the stairs with a rush and strength while the hot blood was still boiling and foaming in my veins because of Julie and Carlos. Upon my arrival at the long lower hallway, the maid obstructed my path in dread and severe fear of my charged appearance, and interlocked her hands, saying with excessive caution and a faint tone: "Mr. Robert... do you want me to bring you a cup of black coffee?"
I did not care at all about her presence or her question; rather, I darted a passing, quick, and harsh look at her and said in a dry tone ending the discussion: "I do not want anything at all... I am leaving here."
I cut my path with momentum and haste toward the large outer door and left the entire house, heading with roaring steps toward my black car. Before I extended my hand nervously to open the driver’s seat door, my movement suddenly stiffened and my hand froze in the air. I stood in my place and shock and astonishment possessed me when I glimpsed inside the car of my brother Harold, parked directly adjacent to my car, something that changed the course of my feelings and my fury.
Behind the tightly closed window glass, there were two small, green eyes, bright with the nature and color of fresh grass, looking at me with complete calmness and absolute innocence, watching my first movements and stillness with a childish interest and affection.
The harshness of my features and the convulsion of my face vanished in a single second as if they never were, and my chest constricted with a warm feeling. I looked at him with scrutiny and contemplation, and my steps quickly abandoned their violence and their nervousness, so I headed toward the door of Harold’s car quietly and pulled it gently to open with complete slowness so that I would not disturb him.
I bent with my massive and strong body into the cabin of the car, and a warm, real, and hidden smile sketched on my rigid lips, one that had not appeared on my face for long years of pain. I looked into his beautiful, shining eyes, his pitch-black hair flowing smoothly over his small forehead, and the softness of his skin, and said in a quiet tone: "Hello."
As soon as my mouth uttered that word, the small child looked at me with utmost innocence with his shining green eyes that radiated purity, and suddenly, and with a childish, spontaneous, and highly sincere rush, he threw his small, light body and the slenderness of his arms entirely upon me without fear, holding onto my neck firmly to embrace me tightly and bury his small and warm head in the depth of my chest.
[I managed to publish 28 Chapters before my birthday, which is truly amazing and I kept my promise to you.
Today is my birthday, and I’ve turned 28. This day is different from all my previous birthdays because it’s my first birthday as a writer, not just an ordinary person, and I wanted to celebrate this day with you all. I want to thank you for everything. Thank you for your support, your reading, and your love. Without you, I am nothing. And I want to ask something of the readers who have reached this Chapter and haven’t yet left a review: please, if you enjoyed my novel, leave an honest review. Thank you, I love you all. ]
